Hunter's Song
by Mystie Paws
Summary: An evil creature is after a girl and her dog. Some magic she uses to escape backfires and lands them in Tortall. Why is the creature after them? Read and find out! I'm not very good at summaries...[Author's Note]
1. Prologue

A/N: All the characters and everything else that you recognize from Tamora Pierce's books are hers. Everything else is mine. Since my italics don't work anything written like this: *example* is supposed to be in italics.  
  
He was perched atop a thin beam suspended high in the air. One misstep would cause him to plummet to the ground below, though he seemed unaware of it. His attention was fixed on one thing, a girl and her dog.  
  
The girl knew he was there, even without looking up she could feel his gaze on them. Judging by the dog's barking, he felt it too. She whispered a word and they both vanished into the crisp night air, just as he leaped.  
  
The creature unfurled giant bat-wings and sped towards the earth. He landed on razor-sharp claws, roaring his fury over missing his targets. . . 


	2. Silencing Spell

They landed with a thud. The girl didn't want to open her eyes for fear of what she might see. She had a feeling that they didn't transport to her friend, Amerilla's house.  
  
"Kiko, hush," she said to the still-barking dog.  
  
*But, Kiarda, we aren't at Amerilla's* came Kiko's raspy mind-voice. *Or did you mean for us to end up in Tortall?* He added sarcastically.  
  
*That* made her open her eyes. She quickly scrambled to her feet, pushing chestnut brown hair off her face. They appeared to be in a hallway of sorts, with two people--an extremely tall man and a woman--walking towards them. Must be Daine and Numair, thought Kiarda to herself. She knew at least a little about them from some books that she'd read.  
  
"Kiko, hush up before you draw attention," she said, a bit more sternly than before.  
  
"What's going on here?" Numair asked. Amazingly, she could hear him since Kiko had finally stopped barking.  
  
"A tad late to stop barking, you've already drawn attention to our presence," Kiara whispered to the dog.  
  
*I can't open my muzzle* growled Kiko furiously, *I assure you that if I could, I would still be barking*  
  
Now Kiara could feel magic, magic that felt like it was coming from Numair, on Kiko. *That* made her mad. How dare someone mess with her companion?  
  
"Tomip'di," she whispered.  
  
"Numair, maybe-" Daine started, but was cut off when her mouth clamped shut from Kiara's spell. Try as she might, she couldn't get it to open again.  
  
"Daine, are you okay? Daine?" asked Numair, worried. "What's wrong?"  
  
Finally, Kiara spoke, "I don't appreciate you putting a silencing spell on Kiko anymore than you like me doing that to Daine. So you get your magic off of him, and I'll take mine off of Daine," she said coldly. 


	3. Some Explanations

A/N: Yea!!! I finally got a new chapter up! I defeated the evil writer's block! *stabs at things with an imaginary sword* Don't mind me, I'm hyper off wheat thins. Wheeee!!  
  
*  
  
"Silencing spell? Oh, I completely forgot," Numair said. He waved his hand, and Kiko started barking almost immediately.  
  
"Could you please quiet your dog down?" Numair yelled to be heard above all the noise.  
  
"Quiet him down?!" Asked Kiara, outraged, "I should be making as much noise as Kiko, if not more! What with you magicking my kanipier like you did."  
  
"Your what?"  
  
Kiara sighed, clearly annoyed. "My kanipier. He's like. . ." She trailed off for a moment, trying to think of a way to put this. She'd never been asked to define "kanipier" before. Amerilla, the only one--besides Kiko-- that mattered to her, knew what it was.  
  
Finally, she continued, "You know how some people are soul mates? Well, we're like that to each other, only our bond is a hundred times stronger."  
  
Just then, Kiara noticed Daine, who was waving her arms around frantically, trying to get somebody's attention.  
  
"I wonder what she's doing," Kiara softly commented to Kiko.  
  
*It might have something to do with a certain girl's silencing spell* was the reply.  
  
"Silencing spell? Oh, I completely forgot," Kiara mimicked with a devilish grin before releasing Daine from the spell.  
  
*That was rather cruel* Kiko remarked.  
  
"Yes, but they had it coming, well, Numair did. And Numair, before you ask, Yes, I'm talking to a dog. Yes, he understands me. And no, I don't have wild magic," Kiara finished smugly.  
  
While Numair was still standing there, dumb-struck, Daine asked, "So what's your name?"  
  
A huge grin spread over Kiara's face. "Finally, after all this interrogation, someone has the polite common sense to ask me my name!" She said dramatically. "It's Kiara, and this is my kanipier, Kiko." As and afterthought, she added, "No hard feelings, right, Daine?"  
  
"No, I guess not," was the reply.  
  
Then Numair asked, "Are you some kind of mind-reader?" "No, Kiara said, " You're just boringly predictable. And next time, do everyone a favor by being more careful who you magic."  
  
And with that, she walked happily the other direction--pleased that she had gotten the last word--with Kiko at her heels.  
  
Numair stood there staring for awhile, until Daine pulled him the other direction. He had a feeling that he and that girl--Kiara, she had said her name was--wouldn't get along very well.  
  
*  
  
A/N: This is *not* the end! Don't worry, there's going to be more of a plot soon. And I got the idea for the kanipier from the spirit-links in "Spirit Fox" by Mickey Zucker Reichert and Jennifer Wingert. 


End file.
